Gaming Life in China #21

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PS3 launch numbers: 400,000? 60,000? Try 500. Launch pics inside.

By Gavin Frankle

The PS3 is here! Well, unless here happens to be the UK, Australia, and pretty much every other territory that Sony screwed over this holiday season. But why dwell on the negative? And if you're the guy whose girlfriend started lining up on Tuesday to secure you a PS3, you most certainly have nothing to be unhappy about. See, like the US launch, the Taiwanese launch was scheduled for Friday, November 17 with SCEH planning to hand out numbers to those in line on Thursday afternoon. However, thanks to our girl above, the queue was in place by Wednesday. To avoid any scuffles/confusion/mass hysteria SCEH wisely (and somewhat generously) decided to hand out numbers to those in line; over and above the initial 150 allocated for the launch event.

The pre-launch activities included your average MC on stage plus tacked on celebrities, interviews with the gamers lined up, and a little cross-promotion as Tetsuhiko Yasuda pimped Sony's Bravia LCD sets. Shameless self-promotion aside, he was cool enough to stick around and personally ring up the sales of the first ten people in line. All in all, it took more than two hours for the units to get processed, as each box was opened on the spot and its contents verified.

And of course there were the inevitable stragglers, who, upon discovering that they had absolutely no hope of securing one of the 150 units on sale (that's not a typo), got a little rowdy. I guess if nothing else, the American, Japanese and Taiwanese launches have proven yet again that no matter where you are in the world, people are stupid. At least humanity is consistent.

If you thought this weekend was significant because it marked the launch of the PS3 and the Wii, you would of course be wrong. This weekend is significant because the Freestyle Global League Grand Finals will take place in Korea from November 17-19 (results in the next GLiC!) Two three-man teams, Kingball and Little Emperors, will represent China at the competition which also features teams from the US, Taiwan, Korean and the Philippines. Prizes of US$20,000, US$7000 and US$3000 are up for grabs. Let's hope they fare better than the Chinese team that got spanked by the Koreans in the Audition: Season 2 competition that also took place this past weekend.

History, as it has a habit of doing, was made on November 11, when, four years after Shanda set the record with a 670,000 PCU for Korean-developed Legend of Mir, the bar was raised to 682,113 PCU by Zheng Tu ("Journey"), a locally developed title. The game has steadily hit high PCUs since the public beta began in April, notching up 300,000 in June; more than 500,000 by mid-September; and just sneaking over 600,000 by the end of October. World of Warcraft, to add some perspective, managed a 630,000 PCU earlier this year.

Meanwhile, EA has taken up residence in Hong Kong's famous Peak Tower. As of November 10, visitors to the popular tourist attraction will be able to participate in the 'EA Experience', which currently offers Xbox 360, PC and PS2 titles such as NBA 07, FIFA 07, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07, Battlefield 2142, Need for Speed: Carbon and The Sims 2: Pets. Oh, and there's also the gift shop. If you were cool enough to get invited to the launch party you could've hung out with the likes of Isabelle (spokes model for The Sims 2: Pets) and Japanese songstress .melody. We weren't.